


Every Story Has Its Chapter In The Desert

by FeelsForBreakfast



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 01:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelsForBreakfast/pseuds/FeelsForBreakfast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Louis wants to run away. Sometimes Zayn comes too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Story Has Its Chapter In The Desert

**Author's Note:**

> The title and inspiration is from the Richard Siken poem driving, not washing (:

Zayn is driving and Louis is riding shotgun, his porcelain nose in the air, ripped toms on the dash as the radio vomits up a melange of static and guitar riffs. The sky is artificial blue, the sun warming the cabin and shining in the lighter strands of Louis’ hair. Louis has on one of Zayn’s band tee shirts and his skinny jeans wrinkle at the knees when he brings his legs up further, walking his feet up the glass. 

Missouri roads are long and snaking, thin hot blacktop that dissolve into gravel on the edges, and Zayn’s pickup is really too big for them, tires running across the yellow lines. It’s hilly too, and he can’t see the road ahead, only the crest of each hill where it appears to drop off. Louis wonders if maybe one of them will turn out to be an actual cliff, that they’ll dive off it and Zayn will curse as they implode, broken bones and glass on the ground.

“Put your seatbelt on, Lou.” He says for the fifth time today, because they’ve been driving for hours and the belt is still hanging lifelessly in his holder.

“Hey Zayn?” Louis asks instead of complying, because he showed up at Zayn’s house at 9:30AM with a duffel bag and a taste for blood in his mouth.

“What.” It’s not an inquiry because he’s still pretending he doesn’t really care.

Louis slides down further in the chair, his feet practically on the ceiling as he pulls the sleeves on Zayn’s varsity jacket further over his hands even though it’s 75 degrees out. “You’re going under the speed limit.”

Zayn fingers suddenly ache for a cigarette. “And you’re contorting yourself in my passenger seat.”

“Sounds like a normal friday night.” Louis replies, taking out Zayn’s iphone and holding it out in front of him. “Normally there are less clothes though.”

“Lou, are you going to tell me why we’re doing this?’ He asks, ignoring Louis as he takes selfies. 

“I wanted to run away.” Louis replies easily, turning the camera to get Zayn. “Smile.”

Zayn does so reluctantly, not looking away from the road as they crest another hill. “Don’t be cute with me, what’s wrong?”

Louis shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Zayn reaches across, finding Louis’ hand and giving it a squeeze. “I thought you were better?”

“I am better.” Louis assures him. He is never perfect but he is always better, two steps forward, no steps back.

“Is that why we’re in the middle of the continental united states and you aren’t wearing your seatbelt?” Asks Zayn.

“That’s what better people do, isn’t it?” Louis replies, because both of them are in on the secret: that better is all relative. He doesn’t drink like he used to, he doesn’t smoke like he used to, but the scars are still there from back when he used to be terrified of not feeling. Sometimes he’s still terrified. Fear doesn’t go away like it should.

“No.” Zayn replies, but he doesn’t press further.

He can hear his phone buzzing in the back, in the bag he’s thrown into the tangle of old McDonalds bags and extension cords. It’s barely noon so Niall probably isn’t even up yet and Perrie thinks cell phones are a product of the capitalist machine, so it’s probably Harry wondering if they want to hang out or Liam’s telepathic worry receptors going off. 

He’s about to say something about it when Louis slides into a sitting position, resting his elbows on the dashboard instead of his feet. “Drive into that car.”

It takes Zayn a moment to process the request. “No.”

“Drive into it. Could be fun, ever been in a car crash before?” Louis asks, voice level and pensive and a bit heartbreaking.

“Got in a bit of scrape when I was little.”

Louis nods, following the blue car with his eyes as it streaks past them. “I wonder what its like to be in a really bad accident. You know, engine fire, shattered glass, gasoline on the highway. What does gasoline feel like?”

“Like gasoline? I don’t fucking know. Wet, maybe.”

“I feel like it should be slippery.” Louis says in that same dead tone and Zayn knows he’s just doing it for a reaction, because he wants to tear himself apart but he can’t so he’s trying to get Zayn to do it for him. 

“I bet it is.” Zayn replies, because he’s had this conversation in a million different forms already. The subject is different but the game is familiar.

“Zayn?”

“What.”

“What would you do if I opened this door?” He’s got his hand on the handle and a stupid look in his eye and for a moment Zayn thinks he might actually do it.

Zayn locks the doors with his left hand, looking pointedly at Louis. “I would crash this car, just like you want. And then we’d both be dead.”

“Well we’d be dead together. It’d be suitably tragic.” The worst part about his smile is that its so happy, like a monster crawled out of his chest and pinned his lips up.

“Just stay in the fucking car.” Zayn says tiredly, because he’s fairly sure Louis wouldn’t actually open the door and fling himself out, but at this point he’s tired and he doesn’t really know what the fuck anyone is capable of anymore.

“Zayn?”

“What.”

“I want to kiss you really badly.”

“Louis could you please try to just-” He shakes his head, slowing and pulling onto the shoulder, his wheels crunching on gravel and crushing grass. “You’re making me crazy. Absolutely crazy.”

He smiles, and it’s less manic, like he slowed down when the car did. “That’s what crazy people do, isn’t it?”

Zayn shakes his head, threading their fingers together so their knuckles brush against the stick shift. “Were you happy before you met me?” He asks, and looks Louis in the eyes, liking how they’re sometimes like bright sunny days and dark winter storms and everything in between. 

“Sometimes.” Louis says, running his fingertips across the back of Zayn’s palm. “I like drinking. I like the highs. It was all I thought about during the lows.”

“But were you happy?” Zayn presses, because sometimes he wonders if rehab even helped, if the boy who showed up in his English class on the first day of school was better than the boy who ruined himself the year before. 

“There wasn’t a happy. There was high and low. And I stopped being able to get off the ground.” Louis replies, with that look in his eyes like he can’t decide if he’s scared of himself or if he misses the rush. “I was happy at the beginning. Not at the end.”

“I wish I could have helped.” Zayn says, because sometimes he thinks about Louis, about how badly he got hurt, how he hurt himself and every single person around him and he wonders if maybe he’d been there it could have been different. Or maybe Louis would’ve dragged him down too. 

“There was nothing to help. I was an addict and an idiot and nothing could have saved me.” He gives Zayn a small smile, his fingers curling against his left arm, where the memory of tracks ghost across his pale, pale skin. “Other people can’t get you clean.”

“I know.” He squeezes Louis’ hand in his, the sun glowing down onto the dashboard and making his skin warm. “I’m so proud of you, you know?”

“Even when I let you down?” Louis asks, that insecure streak making the corners of his lips tug down. 

Zayn shakes his head. “You’ve never let me down.”

“Sure I have.” Louis replies. “Should we go alphabetically or by the gravity of the fuck up?”

Zayn purses his lips. “You’ve never let me down in any of the ways that mattered.”

“Oh.” Louis replies, looking out into the small town they’ve pulled over in. It’s bright afternoon and the sunlight glistens of the silos, making tiny sparks in the distance. There’s a rundown barn to their left and field to their right, a few cows grazing in the distance. They’re in the middle of nowhere, but it’s rather alright.

“Ready to head on? We’ve got miles to go before we sleep.” Zayn asks, giving Louis a sideways little grin.

Louis smiles. “And miles to go before we sleep.”

Zayn turns the truck back on with a great rumbling sound that shakes the rusting metal body. “Love you.” He say offhandedly, like maybe it doesn’t matter.

It does. 

“You too.” Louis replies almost belatedly, like the words got stuck in his throat before he could get them out. “I love you too.”

Zayn smiles as he turns back on to the road. “Put your seatbelt on you monster.”

Louis rolls his eyes but reaches up and pulls the belt across his chest, clicking in. His feet are still on the dash but he’s smiling now, the real kind. 

“Thankyou.” Zayn replies with a half grin, pressing down on the gas and driving further into the heartland.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated. <3


End file.
